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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22502725">Time and Tides</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/worcester/pseuds/worcester'>worcester</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:14:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,568</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22502725</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/worcester/pseuds/worcester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
      <p>First fic, if it's shit that's why. I have literally no idea how to write</p>
    </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Edelgard von Hresvelg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>First fic, if it's shit that's why. I have literally no idea how to write</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dimitri reached for her hand.</p><p>Of course he would try to spare her, he had always been kind, too soft-hearted to be king. She had at least managed to regain that much from the shattered memories of her past. She smiled at the recollection. Long since deciding to shed the weight of her own past to pursue a new future. But, perhaps now the past had some use to her. perhaps it would not be so bad as her final thoughts. No, she thought, he wouldn’t kill her. Gone was the madman she had fought at Grondor, there stood someone completely different. She doubted there was anything she could say to spur such a reaction from him now.</p><p>Edelgard reached for the dagger instead.</p><p>As she drew her hand away from his, towards the blade she had made up her mind. She would return the dagger he had given her, then he would be able to cut a path to the future he had wanted, one without the complications her life would bring. But, before she could act Dimitri knelt to embrace her, tearing off his gauntlets to hold her in his arms. She could feel his hands tremble as he moved to cradle her head, desperation clear in his voice as he pleaded with her to surrender. He had called her El, a name foreign to her now, used by the nightmares of family in her sleep. Yet no words of response left her mouth nor expression cast across her face, her eyes half lidded in the dull expectation of her own death.</p><p> Perhaps it was the solemnity of the times, the finality of her actions as she unsheathed the dagger or maybe his presence so close to her, but she found herself reminiscing about her own past. She had been held like this before, long ago. When she and her siblings had huddled together desperately, wishing no more of them would be killed or driven mad by their cruel experiments. Did he feel as she had felt before, watching the very last of her family; those who she loved rent from her very arms?</p><p>“I have spent five years of my life a wandering beast, only living to spill as much blood as possible. My hands are stained red from it, my vision clouded by the ghosts of the men I’ve slain. Please allow me to save just one life in the damned war. I do not want you to haunt me.” He pleaded to her, bearing his very soul as if that would give him even the slightest chance of her surrender, she couldn’t help feeling his affection for her was unwarranted; “I have told you once before, I am no longer the girl you fell in love with, she is a good as dead.” She spoke softly, lacking the energy to use her usual force of will. Dimitri did not lessen his grip on her or move away, he spoke quietly to her, his voice soft perhaps with resignation or perhaps he was simply as tired as her “The boy you met in Faeghus is dead as well, he died at Duscur. The student you saw at the academy died the night he saw your face in the Flame Emperor’s armour. And that beast you saw...” His face contorted, disgust clear on his face “That beast you saw in Grondor died in that very field. But I will not give in, I cannot turn back times hands to fix the mistakes of the past, but I will fight with everything I have for the future- a future that I wish to see you in.”</p><p>She didn’t have the energy to respond, so simply slumped against him, the dagger dropping uselessly to the floor below. he unclasped his cape offering it to her as a pillow to shield herself from the edges of his armour, he wished he could shed the rest of his armour wanting to embrace her with the warmth of his clothes not the cold of metal. Edelgard was so very tired, she only spoke in half coherent murmurs, about a sense of familiarity in his arms. Whatever the procedure was to transform into such a dreadful monster he had seen had taken its toll on her body.</p><p>He told Byleth to fetch a healer and as they left there was only the two of them. They were battered, beaten and scarred but alive, and as Edelgard slowly, weakly returned his embrace Dimitri found his breath left him in relief. They had survived and perhaps was all that he could wish for.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was the beginning of the Horsebow Moon in the Kingdom, and as typical of the season winds from the very north of Fodlan had descended upon the capital, Fhirdiad. While the Dimitri had endured the bitter cold and harsh winds for a lifetime, he was still ill at ease. The war was over but work ever still remained. Dimitri had merely exchanged his lance and armour for pen and paper, it was no less serious work and no less lives rested upon the shoulders of the newly crowned king. His country was starving, crops had been tramped underneath the boots of soldiers and storehouses razed by the flames of war. Faerghus was a bitterly cold land, it’s harvests poor at the best of times but famine and disease spread through war torn lands like a wildfire. It would be the poorest of society bearing the brunt of the famine, those who had sheltered him in the slums from his time in exile, the very weakest he had vowed to protect. He would not let them die; he would not let this accursed war take one more life.</p>
<p>It was not just the people of Faerghus that required aid, people in the former nations of Adrestia and Leicester while not battered by the cold were still suffering the enduring afflictions of the war. Conflict was a terrible thing, still gnawing away at those who have survived like a foul carrion bird gorging itself, feasting on the weak.</p>
<p>As such Dimitri was now fervently working throughout the night, alone at his desk with the burdens of three nations resting on his shoulders.</p>
<p>“You should be asleep at this hour.” He could recognise that voice instantly, it had haunted him for five years, a grim spectre reminding him what needed to be done. A reason for him to live in wartime.</p>
<p>“Do your messengers travel at night in this cold?” She gestured to the window, already snow was beginning to fall, rain frozen by nights chill. “No.” Dimitri replied curious of why Edelgard would ask such a thing. “Then any work need not be completed this late at night, save it for the morning light.”</p>
<p>He had wondered if she had meant to sound so sharp, as if she was discipling a child, probably. Her voice had lost none of the regality he recalled from days at the academy nor any of the strictness he remembered from their childhood dance lessons. Her eyes were different however, while still violet they were now sullen, deep set and unfocused. Another cost of the war. After showing her displeasure she moved to study the bookcase beside him, her eyes sweeping over books until they rested on a small, thin little one, battered from both age and use. A child’s copy of The Sword of Kyphon, a gift from his father when he was a child, a book they had both read together when one night Edelgard had crept into his room and demanded that he read it to her.</p>
<p>Why was she here at this hour? The woman’s face expression nothing away, her face was as unyielding as the rest of her as she slid into his bed, allowing herself the comfort of the blankets to shield herself from the cold. He noted her awkward posture in bed and her unwillingness to close her eyes. He had acted similarly while trying to sleep at the academy. From that he was able to deduce she was suffering from nightmares, he himself could vouch that it was difficult to go back to sleep knowing that a horror awaited you. She had chosen to distract herself in a novel, an innocent children’s book hoping it would ease her into a slumber.</p>
<p>He wanted desperately to comfort her but doubted his ability to do so. Edelgard was never been forthright with her troubles, and she had avoided talking to him in any depth since they had returned to the capital. He moved to lie on the bed beside her, deciding to rest his head on her shoulder, hoping that his proximity would provide the comfort his words could not. It seemed to have worked as Edelgard curled one of her arms around him, idly playing with his hair pulling him closer to her chest. He listened to her heartbeat, the rise and fall of her chest with every breath. Proof that she was alive, that he had been able to save someone-anyone in this war. A reason for him to live in peacetime.</p>
<p>He noticed her eyes furrowed at the book, she had not decided to read it, just simply stare at it. “It is funny, I know how this book ends, but I don’t remember ever having read it.”</p>
<p>“I suppose I will just have to start again.”</p>
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